Landed
by llamaSUPERNOVA
Summary: An old flame of Rabastan's resurfaces, helping both of them understand their society in the most unexpected way. Another Redemption Song prequel. Antigoneverse. AU.
1. we'd hit the bottom

To say it all happened fast would've been a lie. In fact, the entire situation had happened painfully slow with excruciating pauses between the beginning and the end. Of course, she knew how everything had started…Emmy's father had told her during the deepest night when no one was left in the hospital to spy and report back to the Union. No one was supposed to know anymore. But he did. Her father had been there first-hand.

Everyone had known precisely what was coming from the black clouds in the East, but instead of provoking riots and chaos, the world remained silent. The silence had been, if anything, worse than when the hammer finally dropped on London. After the final battles in the back alleys of England, it had all been over. The Ministry had done nothing. There were no newspapers that month, nothing to warn the Londoners of the storm so readily approaching their city, their homes, their children. The Ministry…almost all of them vanished overnight. The officials that hadn't escaped on the last few ferries to America had simply been lost to the dark streets of London. Emmy hoped it was shame that drove them out into the gutters.

For a man who had never served in any army, Grindelwald was well aware of how to take complete control of a large city. Emmy's father had said it was called blitzkrieg, a German word for "lightning strategy." Move fast and wipe them out before they even had been aware of an attack. Emmy's father had always known during those lifeless nights before the raids of what was coming their way. He had prepared while others wept in fear, managing the hospital and sneaking out patients. Shuttling them to the nearby port and sending the muggleborns away from England. England, the land with a black sky. Emmy had spent long days doing her father's wishes, hiding and helping those in desperate need. They'd smuggle them out under the cover of darkness to waiting ships, praying to the gods that that night wouldn't be the night for Grindelwald and the Union's final move.

When Tess had come to live with them and hid away in Emmy's room, like a dirty secret that one shoves under their bed to mingle with dust bunnies and old socks, it had spelled trouble. Emmy hadn't wanted her to stay with them; her presence connected Emmy, Penny, and their father with their past crimes. Tess was a link to slavery and death, something Emmy wanted no part of. It had been selfish. Then again, the desire to survive often was. After a fellow Healer at the hospital had been tortured for housing a muggleborn in his house, he talked. They always talked. He had even told them things they didn't ask him such as other railroads and what persons had them, when all they had been interested in knowing was where he was sending them off to. After the name Healer Clearwater was screamed from the wizard's cracked lips, Emmy and her family were marked.

The ride into slavery had not been a pleasant one. The last moments of her father's welling eyes as they hauled her and her sister out of the room would remain forever burned into the side of her skull, directly behind her eyes so that she was forced to stare at the horrible image for the rest of her days. She hadn't even been allowed to hug him goodbye. From the smell and the thick layers of orange and black rust lining the walls, the small compartment on the train had been well used by what appeared to be an old farm. Emmy could only hear the creaks of the railroad under her feet and the light sobs of others around her. She had been lucky to have been able to find a corner for herself and Penny, giving her two walls to lean against as they rode farther into hell. It would've been insane to attempt to sit down on the floor, what with the number of bodies pressed against each other. She would've been crushed to death under their feet. Emmy had remained dead and empty for the duration of the two hour trip, with only the sounds of the engine room behind them and the light squeals of a rape somewhere deeper in the train car to keep her mind there and awake.

When the car gave a last jerk and the steam whistle screeched its final breath, Emmy's eyes finally lifted to the ceiling before blinking blankly. Had she been asleep the entire train ride, or just too numb to remember all that had happened? Emmy had followed the long line of people into the bleak building, where a large circular room seemed to present itself with an air of stiff disapproval. The emptiness bothered Emmy. Soon after they were all herded together like cattle into the middle of the room, two men entered and began barking orders, lining them up and sending them to the left or the right. It only took one single moment for them to decide their fate, a flash of their hungry eyes and you were either looking at a mass grave or a trip to the washroom to prepare for examination and show. Emmy was sent down the right hallway and, when the hallway seemed to never end, worried that she had been chosen for death.

The relief had been bittersweet when she noticed the showerheads hanging loosely off broken gray pipes above their heads. Emmy had been handed a faded gray jumper, the tag reading off her numbers along her breast. Her index finger ran over the 3224 as if testing reality, making sure that she was really now a number. Everything she was could now be described involving the words "three," "two," and "four". The jumper had been made for a child, the fabric hugging every curve in her frame, making her chest bulge slightly. Although it made her chest cave in, cutting off air from filling her lungs, she hadn't unbuttoned the second button on her chest to release the pressure. She wouldn't give them that satisfaction willingly.

Standing in line had taken a great deal of time. Emmy kept her hands busy with tugging at the fabric and attempting to keep her rounded hips more slender, her rear less apparent. She would tug the gray cloth away only to have it suck back to her flesh, rebelling against her, laughing at her every time. When it was finally time to go on through the large door into another unknown, Emmy was stopped by the guard at the door. With a quick flick of his wrist, the wand was against her chest and the second button had disappeared. It was a silly thought to grieve for a button, but it had been so much more then that. It had been Emmy's final hope of making her own choice. She had wanted the button there, and it had been taken away. That was when it all sank in – she had no choice anymore. Her stomach finally gave a lurch as she entered through the door into the hot spotlight.


	2. I'd thought it was my fault

This was… foolish.

Rabastan had never cared for slaves; he found them detestable creatures, filthy and hardly fit for wiping the dust off the Lestrange banisters. Yet Father insisted it was a necessity. If Mother had been alive, Rabastan was sure Master Lestrange would've re-thought his decision to stock the house full of repulsive blood. She had always been adamant about staffing the manor with elves. However, Master Lestrange had repeated himself over and over again that it was imperative to meet the exact quota of the Malfoy Manor. Rigel could not stand to fall below Abraxas in anything. It was his pathetic pride, a sickness that plagued every power-hungry pureblood on the continent. Otherwise they would not be out at this gaudily decorated shit hole that revealed the underside of pureblood society, the utter lows they would stoop to in order to prove their worth.

He had been dragged. Rabastan had not wanted to go, but Master Lestrange had responded that he had no choice in the matter whatsoever, that every single one of them had to be present in order to make the correct entrance. It was not as though Rabastan's opinion especially mattered, it was simply the presentation. The Auction House itself modeled early Roman designs, pillars holding the overhanging above their heads, golden engraved lettering above the grand mahogany doorway. They had scrubbed and perfected, spent thousands of galleons on making the Auction House something to crow about, a respectable place where the wealthy and important could flock to.

Master Lestrange walked before his two sons, deep green cloak lay properly across his broad shoulders, white oxford pressed and without wrinkles, cuffs buttoned, and dark hair slicked back. Rodolphus walked a pace behind him, spine straight, chin slightly tilted, his appearance mirroring his father's in nearly every way possible. Rodolphus' arrogant manner, however, had always been a bit more pronounced than his father's. He had an extra swagger to his step, a slightly higher raised brow, and a wilier smirk, the side of his mouth lifting further than his father's.

He loved attending just as much as Master Lestrange loved flashing their galleons, showing their wealth. It was a disease that had not failed to infect his father and his brother, as well as every other pureblooded family with the intent to buy slaves. Rabastan was not disgusted and repulsed because of his sympathy for those enslaved. Oh no, that was certainly not it. His answer to the mudblood problem? Kill them all. There was no use for them, even as slaves. That is why, after all, house elves were domesticated. Mudblood slaves were simply more mouths to feed, more bodies to fill a perfectly empty household. It was like he was back at school, sharing his living quarters with utter filth. Master Lestrange despised his slaves as well; he found them just as disgusting. However, there seemed to be no way to skirt around the inevitable; the buying of slaves was unavoidable. The amount one possessed spoke of one's position in society.

They must be bought.

Rabastan stood silently beside Rodolphus, finally raising his gray eyes from the floor, resisting the urge to squint into the bright lights of the stage. The extravagant set-up was loud and noisy to the eye, busy as hell, what with draperies of fine crimson velvet, paintings lining every inch of the wall, expensive marble statues situated at either side of the podium. The designers had made a point of showing all of those who visited the House that an extreme amount of galleons had been placed into the construction of such a lavish place. They had spared no cost, they wanted to attract the wealthy and the important, and they had been successful in such a respect. There was quite the crowd surrounding the slightly elevated stage, every individual dressed in costly attire, every single individual trying their best to show-up the individual beside them.

It was almost moronic.

Rabastan sighed heavily as the obese man waddled on to the stage, his thick washed-out brown hair styled into perfect waves, moustache trimmed and gold-rimmed glasses set arrogantly upon his roman nose. He was dressed in a violent purple suit, a golden tie tucked into the waistcoat. He had a large smile painted onto his ruddy face, and seemed ready for his roll as the entertainer. His voice boomed over the soft murmur of society's finest.

"Good evening my fine ladies and gentlemen! I would like to welcome you to Borgin's Auction House on such a fine autumn evening. It is an honor to have those of such importance beneath our roof."

He bowed deeply, signifying his respect, although Rabastan knew he was full of shit, simply massaging the crowd's ego before he ripped as many galleons out of their jingling pockets as possible.

"Now without further ado, I shall grant you what you have all come to see, our newest shipment!"

On cue the lights dimmed, and the slow shuffling of the enslaved moved out onto the large stage in a single-filed line, heads bowed, their defeat visible on every face. Dressed in the same washed-out gray uniform, they fit tight so members of the audience could see exactly what it was they were paying their money for. Those who stood before him were ashamed, spirits so beaten that they lay bloody at the pit of their gut, pride disintegrated completely.

Rabastan shook his head, eyes already traveling to those surrounding him, when something gut-wrenchingly familiar caught his eye. He quickly reverted his gaze, gray eyes widening with utter astonishment as they located the source of his suddenly upset stomach. What the bloody hell was _Emmy_ doing here? 


End file.
